by John McCrae
Coagulants, I thought. Painkillers.
I watched the others carefully, making sure that my minions weren’t inadvertently putting others in the line of fire. I started circling our group with our teleporter, drawing out a line as she jogged in a tight loop. The two shakers, the telekinetic and the guy who made lasers, they had matching costumes. Had they combined their techniques? I formed lasers between the airborne ball bearings. Needle thin, they still cut into Scion.
The damage of one with the flexibility of the other. No doubt a technique they’d used on their own.
Scion turned his head, looking at us. His hands glowed.
The teleporter lunged forward, completing the loop, leaving out only the brute with the weird skin, the fragment-shapeshifter and the girl with the disc. I gave one last command to make the disc-botanist tinker start running.
Our group was collectively teleported away. I could feel the strength drain out of the teleporter to the point that she fell to the ground. Scion’s attention was elsewhere. He hadn’t gone after any of the ones we’d left behind. We’d managed to avoid his attentions.
I turned my attention to the one cape I hadn’t yet figured out.
A voice interrupted me. “Queen Administrator. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Glaistig Uaine. I didn’t respond. My focus was on the young man. Some kind of trump power, responding to a few glimmers here and there.
I turned her way. She was dressed in a complicated dress of green-black ribbons, complete with a hood. She looks so young.
I pointed at the cape I was trying to figure out and raised my stump-arm in a shrug.
“If you want to get a full understanding of your new capabilities, you must figure that out on your own,” she said. “Practice, and it will soon be second nature.”
I turned my attention to the cape. My focus, again, was interrupted by her voice.
“I will warn you, do not attempt to usurp me. If I catch you trying, I will fight you. I am careful to tend to my flock, and would not have anyone but me handle them.”
I nodded.
“Good. Peace is preferable,” she said. We watched Scion unload on another group.
They can’t stop him with brute strength. They know it. Yet they keep coming. Is it just for the sake of going out with a fight? The hope of finding some trump card?
I’d stopped capes from running, but the idea wasn’t to stop retreat. Retreat was sensible. I didn’t want things to devolve into a panicked stampede to get away.
“It seems we’re losing, Administrator,” Glaistig Uaine said, as if echoing my thoughts.
I shook my head a little.
“I would offer him solace, if I knew how. He is in a dangerous state, and I find myself worried for the first time.”
I glanced at her.
“Yes, very worried. Had things gone like they were before, I would be bothered, but not overly upset. We would die, the faerie would slumber and they would wait. With luck, with a great deal of luck, he would find another partner, or another partner would find him, and things would be set for the great play to start anew, on a fresh stage.”
Scion had stopped with the beams and the blasts. He was throwing punches again, hurling himself into the thickest parts of the crowd. Nilbog’s creations were taking the brunt of the attack.
“But the faerie are creatures of whimsy, aren’t they? Easily influenced by the masks they wear. It’s the whole point of them, isn’t it, Administrator? It’s why they are, yes?”
I nodded a little. I could almost see it.
She nodded a little herself, as if satisfied by my response. “He’s fallen prey to the worst kind of whimsy, a destructive wroth. He is heartbroken and hopeless, he has lost more than you or I could ever imagine, and he may well leave this stage so ruined that things cannot be salvaged, unless we’re fortunate enough to get a…”
She trailed off, grasping for a word.
Understudy?
“Fortuitous arrival,” she said. She smiled a little. “Not very likely. They litter breadcrumbs in their wake, not to be followed, but so their kin don’t waste time and effort traveling the same paths. For another to arrive here, they would need to avoid touching a single crumb, like you or me swimming the length of a river without touching a wave.”
Black Kaze had entered the battlefield, backed up by Dragon’s Teeth. She disappeared, and then reappeared behind Scion, katana drawn. A moment passed, and Scion reacted as though he’d been punched dead center in the chest.
Not a big reaction, but it was a reaction.
Black Kaze alternated attacks with Acidbath, very proper, measured in her movements, compared to Acidbath’s flailing, reckless, hurried scramble to keep out of Scion’s line of sight. Acidbath moved with surprising quickness, faster than a typical car might. A peculiarity of his breaker power.
Glaistig Uaine offered a small laugh. “I cling to a sliver of hope, and I know I’m fooling myself. There really isn’t much of a time window. A few thousand years is such a short time, you know.”
I continued to pay attention while I focused on the more mysterious cape in my range, the one who I hadn’t deciphered.
The connections of his powers to something that was there but not quite there… his power hinged on some outside qualifier or factor that wasn’t being met on this battlefield. It was concentrated most on the wounded…
It snapped into place. His power worked with people who were sleeping. The people his power sort of worked on were unconscious.
I used the teleporter to draw a circle around him. A moment later, he was gone, set in the midst of the biggest cluster of wounded.
“Ah, you understood. Good.”
Only a moment later, Scion attacked, striking the ground. We were distant enough that I could see the circle of golden light expanding around them, a ring that ripped through the ground, demolishing it.
Nilbog’s creations, the defending forces and Dragon’s suits were all toppled as the ground settled. Buildings collapsed.
A wounded Leviathan emerged from the water, approaching Scion with an almost lazy slowness. Capes practically fought one another to get their footing and get out of the way. Some were too rough in their hurry to get by Nilbog’s creations, only to get attacked by the things in retaliation.
I clenched my one fist.
“Would you accompany me? We would be the queen of the living and queen of the fallen. No swords in our hands, but warlords nonetheless. Yes? I will give you hints, if you desire them, and help you manage your soldiers. One last hurrah, a great war to end it all, like the best myths have.”
I shook my head slowly.
“No? A shame. Fear? A lack of soldiers?”
I shook my head, still.
“No, you are not afraid, queen, or you are afraid, but this is a fear that drives you forward. You have something you intend to do.”
I nodded.
“Then I will be here when you return, and we can have that great battle, fighting to drive him back into slumber.”
I gathered my swarm around me and the teleporter, and I had her draw another circle.
Glaistig Uaine reached out, seizing the woman’s wrist. The teleporter’s alarm mingled with my own.
But she wasn’t attacking, and she wasn’t taking the teleporter’s powers, extinguishing her life in the process.
“A warning,” Glaistig Uaine said.
I gave her my full attention.
“You sought power, and you lost a portion of yourself in the doing. Always the case, but it’s… pronounced, in a case like yours. Yes?”
“Hng,” I mumbled.
“You will need a tether, an anchor. It can be an idea, a physical thing, a place, a person, a goal. Right now, it will not seem so important, but it will. When all is said and done, you will either be dead, and this thing will be a comfort to you in your last moments, or you will be powerful, and it will be all you have left. Decide what you will hold on to.”
I’ve alre
ady decided what that is, I thought. Since a long time ago.
“Choose very carefully,” she said. “Take it from someone who knows.”
Then she moved the teleporter’s hand, closing the circuit.
The teleporter and I arrived at our destination at the same moment Leviathan crashed into Scion. Water mingled with the ruined landscape, seeping into cracks, making life just a bit harder for the capes in the center of the disaster area.
I felt memories stir. The moment I’d announced myself as Weaver and heard the howling.
You really have to make this unnecessarily hard, don’t you? I thought. Reminding me that I’m abandoning them.
Yes, Rachel and Imp were probably there. So were the capes I’d controlled and urged back into the fray. Maybe they had turned to run at the first opportunity. Maybe they had been given a chance to reconsider, and were still fighting.
Maybe I’d killed them, by denying them the chance to run.
But I told myself I wasn’t abandoning them.
I had a mission, and this was a mission that would take me back to them, after a fashion. I might never rejoin the group, I was fully aware of what I was getting myself into, but this was for their sake, not despite them.
That detour was a part of the mission, killing multiple birds with one stone. Helping to stop the rout, trying to do a little something to keep the fight going, so the capes on the ground could buy time. Learning about my new ability, testing my ability to accommodate unfamiliar abilities.
It hadn’t been planned, so much, but I’d also had a reminder of something that had slipped my mind.
Glaistig Uaine was one of my most dangerous enemies at this point.
Now I was in dire need of information. Getting that information was a surprising obstacle, considering my inability to communicate. I couldn’t ask, couldn’t whip out my phone and type something into the search bar and wait for it to dig records out of the archives.
To these ends, I’d moved us to the edge of the settlement, where six armored suits were deployed and waiting to be sent into the fray. The Pendragon was one. Dragon’s Teeth were scattered throughout the area, many holding what looked like rocket launchers with glass bulbs at the front.
The teleporter was exhausted from using her ability, and leaned on me as we made our way forwards.
D.T. officers stepped forward to bar my way.
Alarm, surprise. I was momentarily dazed by images of a number of surprise attacks and explosions. My power had reached them, and they stepped aside at my command.
I moved as confidently and as quickly towards the Pendragon as I could manage, trying not to show fear or uncertainty. Harder than it sounded, given my limping, uneven gait, and the way my head slumped forwards. D.T. officers beyond my range took notice and moved to flank me.
I reached the back of the Pendragon and I slammed my hand on the metal door. I did it again. My best attempt at a knock. I tried my best to stand straight, folding my hand behind me.
Not quite loud enough. The armor was too thick. Still, the fact that I’d knocked was a point in my book, as far as the officers were concerned. They were hanging back.
“Defiant isn’t replying,” one of the officers said.
“Try Dragon,” another spoke. “She always answers calls.”
“Ladies!” One called out. “State your identities for the record!”
You know who I am, I thought.
“We know your face, we’ve met, but we can’t take anything for granted here! Stranger and Master protocols are in effect!”
Oh.
Were the protocols in effect because of me?
Or was it a problem that stemmed from the half-dozen incidents in the last two years, where people had tried to capitalize on Endbringer attacks and other crises, attempting assassinations on key figures?
I couldn’t argue it, in any event. I couldn’t defend myself, either.
“Both of you! We’ll need your names, and we need at least one good password!”
Right. Lovely.
Couldn’t use the teleporter without getting shot. They’d see the line…
Unless they couldn’t. Seeing myself through the teleporter’s eyes, I was a little surprised at the sheer number of bugs I’d accumulated.
She moved her hands to me, and she drew the line through the middle of the swarm.
Could she teleport where she couldn’t see?
I focused our attention on the interior of the Pendragon.
She closed the circuit, and we were inside.
My bugs could sense the soldiers reacting.
“Weaver?” Dragon asked. “I was just about to step outside.”
I stepped away from the teleporter. My eyes roved over the ship’s interior. Less elbow room than in the Dragonfly.
“Tattletale filled me in, asked me to pass on the details,” Dragon said. “A lot of people are worried, here, on quite a few different levels.”
I couldn’t respond, and I knew how tight time was, so I met her eyes, nodded a little, and then gestured towards the nearest laptop.
“Yes,” Dragon said. “Of course.”
I gave her a little salute. I didn’t know a better way of expressing thanks. If I’d known sign language, would I have lost it with my ability to speak and write?
“Tattletale was saying you were unfocused. I’m not getting that sense. You’re up to something.”
The laptop booted. I froze.
Oh. Damn.
I realized what I was looking at, and I felt my heart plummet.
When my mom had died, I’d sort of turned to books as a way of remembering her, a way of being with her in the present day, reminding myself of the nights she would read aloud to me, then the nights we’d read together, and beyond that, times when we’d all be in the living room, my dad with his computer half the time, a book the other half. My mom and I always had our novels. Sometimes we had shared, sometimes not.
When the bullying had started, books had been an escape. I’d be exhausted at the end of the day, feeling a low that counterbalanced the higher adrenaline and stress of the time spent in school. Curling up with something to read had been a refuge.
Maybe that had lapsed when I’d become a cape. The costumed stuff had become an escape of sorts. But I’d gotten back into it in prison, and on some of the stakeouts. I’d taught myself braille, so I could read with my bugs, and take in more.
I would have settled for being a little crazy. I would have settled for some physical impairment, for a power that was so out of control that I couldn’t have real human contact again.
The words were gibberish. I couldn’t read. It had been something I’d turned to in my lowest moments, a little crutch, a coping mechanism, and it had been denied to me.
It hit me harder than the loss of my voice, stupid as it was. My hand shook, hovering over the display.
I watched as the words disappeared, replaced by images. A composite picture of locations, a composite picture of faces, a composite picture of icons that no doubt included details on powers. There were others I could scroll down to see.
My eyes watered a little. I couldn’t look at Dragon, but I raised my hand in another salute. Not nearly as good a thank-you as I wanted to be able to give.
My fingers touched the display. Faces.
There were sub-menus. All visual. I clicked the frowny-face with the black background, then the little map for a world map… America. I clicked the map icon again for a national map… Washington.
I found Teacher’s portrait near the top of the results list. One of Washington’s most notorious capes. Right. I clicked it.
Dragon’s hand settled on the top of my head. She ran it over my hair, using one finger to hook a strand and move it out of my face. She did the same for another strand.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I opened his file, and I clicked through the tabs until I saw a map.
I tapped my phone against the screen.
There w
as a rumble outside, followed by a thrum, and movement beyond this craft. Dragon had deployed at least two of the other suits.
“I need some communication here, Weaver,” Dragon said.
Dumbly, I tapped the phone against the screen once again, not making eye contact.
“Please,” she said, but she made it sound like an order.
What do you want? I thought. Pantomime? Do you want me to draw Teacher and the rest with my bugs and enact a play?
I didn’t do either. I reached up and pulled off my mask. I met Dragon’s eyes.
I could see myself through the teleporter’s vision. Strands of my hair had fallen across my face as I’d removed the mask. My lips were pressed together – I forced myself to relax them, only to find them resuming the position when I turned my attention elsewhere. My body was all odd angles, my expression… I didn’t even know how to judge my own expression. I didn’t know my own face that well, all things considered. It was only something I saw from time to time in the mirror, getting ready for the day.
Intense? Focused? Determined?
Fatalistic? More crazy than less?
I held her gaze.
Again, I tapped the phone against the computer screen.
It chirped. The data had been loaded onto it.
“If it was Skitter that asked me, I would have said no,” Dragon said.
I nodded.
“If I was convinced it was Weaver in there more than anything else, I’d feel a lot better about this. Tell me, am I going to regret giving you this?” she asked.
I couldn’t answer. Not even with a nod or a shake of the head. I touched the screen again, going back a bit. Region… Chinese Union-Imperial.
C.U.I.
She knew what I was looking at. “I’m thinking of how we brought the Endbringers in, bullying people into helping, or at least getting them to stop hurting. Is this going to be a repeat? Strongarming them? Using your power?”
I shook my head.
My phone chirped again.
Others. More targets. The Birdcage.
Another chirp.
The rest I’d find on my own, provided all went according to plan.
I turned to the teleporter, then bowed low. It wasn’t because of her culture – she looked European – it was because a bow would have to serve as an apology, as much as a salute would have to serve as acknowledgement and thanks.